Where Did Google+ Go?

While it’s somewhat difficult to believe that Google doesn’t carry a 100% success rate with all of its products and services, the sunsetting of Google+ apparently proves just that. With reports of low usage and engagement, along with an astounding 90% of all Google+ consumer user sessions lasting less than 5 seconds, it’s fairly easy to recognize that the general public consistently chose other outlets for their social media interactions. Although Google plans to sunset Google+ in the fairly near future for consumer users, it is possible they may invest more into their enterprise version of Google+.

Sunsetting the Consumer Side

Originally Google planned to shut down Google+ sometime in August of 2019. However, after the discovery of a security issue that had the potential to adversely affect over 50 million users, Google decided to shut down the service completely on April 2, 2019, rather than expending resources to fix the issue.

Google has already set deadlines for various aspects of Google+ with regard to the end of their functioning. For example, Google no longer allows a consumer to create a Google+ profile, nor can they create any events, communities or pages. Users are advised before the April deadline, to download any personal information, along with photos or other data they wish to save. Google does not plan to sunset any of their G-Suite accounts so users should still have access to G-Suite components such as Calendar, Drive, Docs, and of course, Gmail.

Investing in the Enterprise Side?

As of October of 2018, Google announced they were planning to not only keep Google+ for their enterprise users, but actually increase their investment for the service. Whether they still plan on following through on this announcement, or if the recent announcement of security issues within Google+ will change their minds is anyone’s guess at this point.

If you’d like to know more about the sunsetting of Google+ and what it means for your business, please contact us.